The Butterfly Tree

An Australian film that never finds an apt tone or tones.

Ed Oxenbould and Melissa George

Tonal clashes are by no means rare in films but the mishmash of styles to be found in The Butterfly Tree,
a film set in Queensland, is exceptional. Priscilla Cameron's first
feature - she is both writer and director - is the story of a widowed
father, Al (Ewen Leslie), and his son, Fin (Ed Oxenbould) a young
teenager, both still in grief after three years. That would suggest a
drama and perhaps a sombre one, but the film, drenched in strikingly
colourful images by photographer Jason Hargreaves, begins with a
burlesque striptease featuring Evelyn (Melissa George). Dad, a teacher,
has a roving eye and is having it off with one of his students, Shelley
(Sophie Lowe) but nevertheless is drawn to Evelyn when, adopting a new
lifestyle, she arrives in town and opens a flower shop. But, as it
happens, young Fin, despite being a lepidopterist and making that
central to his concerns, gets the hots for Evelyn too.

Much
of this is presented as comedy, often with a highly stylised element in
the visuals. But, while Fin is seen as a 13-year-old reaching puberty,
the film's emphasis on the sexual seems largely imposed from the
outside, a fact in line with the choice of opening material but equally
present in the portrayal of Shelley. It must be said though that, even
in a film which relishes over-the-top images, the relationship between
Evelyn and the young Fin supposedly involving a real bonding needs to
convince. But it never does so on any level at all. One might argue
that this fanciful work is not seeking to be a believable narrative,
but then it turns out that Evelyn has a secret which banishes the
film's light tone. Furthermore, at about the same time, there is an
unexpected revelation about the death of Fin's mother Rose, and a note
that she had written to Al is seemingly made known to Fin for the first
time: this seems absurd, especially since it might have eased the
tensions that have grown up between father and son.

The
cast is not an untalented one, but the film's inability either to set a
tone or to move effectively from one tone to another means that it is
quite impossible to believe in any of the characters. The fantastical
elements that characterise the film's first half are utterly at odds
with the drama that plays out thereafter: the only consistent aspect
that can be found throughout is that everything seems unreal.